6 Supervillain Devices You Can Make At Home

Becoming a supervillain is easier than you think: All you need is proper motivation and a trip to Home Depot, apparently. That's how these guys did it, anyway:

#6. Shoot Fire From Your Hands (and MIND)

Nothing says "supervillain" like being able to shoot fire from your hands. Sure, there are a few good guys with that power, but generally speaking, launching blasts of fire tends to be more useful when your goal is to, you know, burn stuff.

"I'm going to use this to fight crime" doesn't seem like a logical conclusion here.

That's why it's slightly unsettling that so many crazy people on YouTube have managed to achieve the exact same ability through the use of homemade gadgets.

To illustrate the type of people we're dealing with here, this guy calls his flamethrower "the Prometheus Device," and he explicitly says that he created it to "emulate the power of the X-Men character Pyro."

Gosh, if only there was some way to make that invention more disturbing. Maybe have the flames shoot from his eyeballs? Or his crotch? Oh, wait, we know! How about a flamethrower that's controlled with telepathy? That's why the PK4A was invented.

We're dying to read the OSHA regulations for this one.

PK4A is a 20-foot flamethrower controlled by a wireless EEG headset. EEG as in brain scanning. As in, this thing fires on mental commands. The entire project was built from the ground up to be a real-life method of achieving pyrokinesis, only with science instead of mutant powers and/or wizardry. The results look something like this:

"You're right -- the middle of the woods seems like the perfect place to test this project."

Keep in mind that this is all just a demonstration of the potential for a system like this. The creators have made it a point to make it completely customizable. In the video, it has a dead man's switch and fires straight up in the air, but those were just safety precautions. It's only a matter of time before someone takes this technology, modifies it into a shoulder-mounted device and uses it to take over a small city.

#5. Retractable Steel Claws

But fire isn't for everyone. Some aspiring supervillains prefer a more subtle approach -- namely, having metal claws erupt from their hands.

And apparently, YouTube is full of these people: This other guy spent a lot more money on the video-editing software, if not on the claws themselves.

The claw-ejection method in this case seems to be "violently push your arms forward and hope they don't come flying off and stab someone in the penis." Sure, none of these guys look like they could make very convincing criminals, but the first put the instructions online and the second says you can buy a custom made pair for $375. Please ... please don't.

Everyone at the hospital will laugh at you.

#4. An Anime-Style Personal Battle Tank

Most of you are probably under the impression that it is impossible to build a tank by yourself. Once again, Japan takes your preconceptions about life and shatters them in the most devastating way possible: Yake Hitoshi Takahashi who built a 15-foot battle tank in his garage -- and it only took him 11 years.

Those letters are actually projected in the air wherever it goes, as a theme song plays.

No, that's not a CGI simulation of what it would look like -- that's the actual thing. We feel the word "tank" doesn't do it justice: "Horrific abomination" comes closer. It even has a port on top for the pilot to poke his head out and laugh maniacally, spacious cargo room to hold children as hostages, and the ability to emit smoke, as if a method of intimidation was even necessary.

Here's a video where Takahashi talks about making it, but it's all in Japanese, so we'll assume that the interviewer is asking "Why would you do this?" over and over, and maybe "What are its demands?" a few times, as well.

If Satan was reincarnated as a robot.

Most insane of all is the fact that, as demonstrated in this video, the thing actually works. It may not be the fastest vehicle in history, but it would still be pants-shittingly scary to see it slowly drag itself up the street toward you. Crushing everything you love in its path.

Also, it shoots smoke out of its ass.

What's perhaps even scarier is that, although Takahashi is the only one who knows how to pilot it, he also designed it to be remote-controlled -- so he can send the thing after you and your family from the comfort of his volcano headquarters.